Chapter 6 - VINCENT KANE'S DEBT
6
Vincent Kane did not sleep that night.
Neither did Mom.
I did, because four-and-a-half-year-olds can fall asleep even when their lives are exploding.
When I woke, Vincent was still sitting near the window.
His suit jacket was gone.
His sleeves were rolled up.
Coffee sat cold beside him.
Mom stood in the kitchen.
“You should go home.”
Vincent looked at her.
“So should you.”
“I don't have one at the moment.”
“Neither do I.”
That confused me.
Vincent had a house.
Everybody knew that.
A giant stone one near the lake.
But later I understood what he meant.
A house was not the same thing as a home when you discovered your dead brother might be alive and using your family name to destroy strangers.
Agent Brooks arrived with more records.
Daniel's hospital room had received one visitor on March 19.
The visitor signed:
A. Kane.
Vincent stared.
“Anthony.”
Mom turned on him.
“Your brother knew where Daniel was.”
“Yes.”
“And Daniel disappeared the next day.”
“Yes.”
She slapped him.
The room went silent.
Vincent did not move.
Mom looked shocked by what she had done.
Salvatore took one step forward.
Vincent raised a hand.
“No.”
He looked at Mom.
“You're allowed.”
“I shouldn't have—”
“Yes. You should.”
Mom began crying.
“You brought your family into ours.”
Vincent's voice was low.
“I know.”
Then he told us the part he had been hiding.
Anthony Kane was not simply Vincent's older brother.
He had built the early Kane organization.
Loan collections.
Protection rackets.
Illegal gambling.
Vincent had spent his twenties working under him.
“I told myself we had rules,” Vincent said.
Mom laughed bitterly.
“Criminal rules.”
“Yes.”
“No drugs near schools. No hurting children. No stealing from employees.”
Vincent looked ashamed saying it.
“Anthony used those rules when they benefited him.”
Lakefront Employment Services had begun as a legitimate company.
Then Anthony realized workers' identities were valuable.
Thousands of people handed employers everything needed to become them on paper.
Addresses.
Social Security numbers.
Birth dates.
Bank details.
Children's names.
Anthony built companies using those identities.
Loans.
Medical fraud.
Tax fraud.
Political donations.
David Sterling had worked as the financial manager.
Howard Voss protected them from investigations.
And Rebecca Mercer, then a young EMT dating David, discovered something she should not have.
“What?” Mercer asked.
Vincent looked at him.
“People.”
“What people?”
“Workers Anthony reported dead.”
The second death certificates.
The false identities.
Some employees who became threats were officially “killed.”
Then their identities continued generating money.
Others were moved, threatened, or paid to disappear.
Rebecca had helped one escape.
Daniel Carter.
Mercer covered his face.
“My sister knew.”
Vincent nodded.
“She called me once.”
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
“What did she say?”
“That Anthony was alive.”
Mercer stood.
“And you never told me?”
“She said if I told anyone, Daniel's wife and unborn child would die.”
Mom's face hardened.
“So you chose silence.”
“Yes.”
“How noble.”
“It wasn't noble.”
Vincent finally looked angry.
“At first I told myself I was protecting you. Then weeks became months. Months became years. Eventually I realized silence was protecting me too.”
That honesty quieted everyone.
If Anthony was alive, then Vincent had spent eight years controlling an organization partly built by a ghost.
Some of Vincent's businesses might still be moving money for his brother.
Some of his closest men might still answer to Anthony.
That was Vincent's debt.
Not money.
Cowardice.
“I should have burned everything down when Daniel disappeared,” he said.
Agent Brooks replied, “Then do something useful now.”
Vincent looked at her.
“Tell us everything.”
So he did.
Accounts.
Names.
Properties.
People.
For six hours, the most dangerous man in Chicago opened his organization to federal investigators.
Even Salvatore looked shocked.
“You understand what you're doing?” he asked privately.
Vincent answered loud enough for everyone.
“Yes.”
“You could lose everything.”
Vincent looked at me.
“Maybe I should.”
Around noon, a message arrived from Rebecca Sterling's phone.
A location.
An old lakefront parking structure.
And a demand.
Bring Daniel's key.
Mom whispered, “What key?”
The stolen toolbox was gone.
But the message didn't say toolbox.
Key.
Agent Brooks asked Mom to remember Daniel's belongings.
Keys.
Boxes.
Lockers.
Jewelry.
Nothing.
I was playing with a stuffed rabbit on the floor when I heard the word key.
Then I remembered Dad's old winter coat.
Mom used to let me wear it when I played detective.
It hung in the back of our closet.
One pocket had a hole.
Something metal sometimes slipped into the lining and made a clicking sound.
“Mom.”
Everyone looked at me.
“Daddy's coat has a secret.”
Agent Brooks stared.
“What secret?”
“A clicky thing.”
Nobody understood.
I did.
Police went back to our apartment.
The coat was still there.
Inside the torn lining they found a small brass key.
Stamped:
G-314.
Vincent stared at it.
Agent Brooks photographed it.
“Could be a locker.”
Mercer said, “Union Station.”
Everyone looked at him.
“The old luggage lockers used letter-number combinations before renovation.”
Within an hour, they discovered G-314 had not existed at Union Station.
But there was another possibility.
Graceland Cemetery.
Section G.
Plot 314.
Mom stopped breathing.
Daniel's parents were buried at Graceland.
We went under federal protection.
Plot 314 belonged to a woman named Margaret Cole.
James Cole.
The hospital alias.
Nobody recognized Margaret.
But beneath the headstone was a tiny metal compartment, the kind used for maintenance records.
The key fit.
Inside was a waterproof envelope.
A flash drive.
A note.
And a photograph.
Mom unfolded the note.
Her hands began to shake.
Mia,
If you are reading this, I failed to come home.
Do not trust David.
Do not trust Voss.
Do not trust anyone named Kane until Vincent proves Anthony is dead.
Protect Rory.
I'm sorry you had to carry this alone.
I love you both.
Daniel.
Mom sank to the grass.
I held her hand.
Vincent stood ten feet away, staring at the sentence about his family.
Agent Brooks inserted the flash drive into an isolated computer.
It contained spreadsheets.
Audio recordings.
Scans.
And one video.
The date was March 20.
The day Daniel vanished from the hospital.
The screen showed Daniel sitting inside a dark room.
His face bruised.
Alive.
He looked straight at the camera.
“Mia, if this reaches you, I'm going to make one last attempt to end this.”
He paused.
“There is something I never told you.”
Mom gripped my hand.
Daniel continued.
“Anthony Kane didn't build Lakefront alone.”
Vincent went very still.
“There was a fifth partner.”
The camera shook.
Daniel looked toward a door.
Then back.
“He is the reason Anthony survived the fire.”
Vincent whispered, “Who?”
Daniel said the name.
And Salvatore dropped his phone.
May you like
Because the fifth partner was Salvatore's father.
The man Vincent had trusted since he was sixteen.
